Writing Humor Clinic with Sherrytex

Oh My, She's Back From the Almost-Dead!

To Blog or Not to Blog, Part 5
AKA the LONG, LAST LESSON!

Wait, What, I Have to do MORE Work?

You have your blog. You have articles in your blog. And yet…no one is coming TO your blog. Why, cruel world, WHY?

Well, you probably haven’t done a few key things.

We’ll start with tagging. It’s the be-all, end-all of blogging, but so many of us (me included) don’t realize it until we’re well into the process.

Tagging is calling out key words that will help search engines -- like Google and Yahoo -- find and pull your piece when someone does a search. You want to over-tag, not under-tag, because anything can pull a reader into your orbit and reading your stuff might keep them there.

I’m going to refer to my first Humor Homework piece in the SYW forum for this, so you’ll have to go back and forth for a bit. In the piece, I talk about the following, and should create a tag for each of them:

Baseball; The Los Angeles Dodgers; The Anaheim Angels (of Los Angeles); The Arizona Diamondbacks; Los Angeles; Anaheim; California; California sports; Phoenix; Arizona; Arizona sports; In-laws; Parents; Spouses; Season tickets; Fans; Fan behaviors; Vin Scully; Tim McCarver; Mike Piazza; The New York Mets; The New York Yankees; New York; baseball stadiums; hot dogs; peanuts; Cracker Jack; Steve Garvey; Davey Lopes; Ron Cey; the World Series; Eckstein; the St. Louis Cardinals; humor; humorous baseball.

That’s a long list. But if I want anyone to come and read the piece, I need to put that list into my tags.

Yes, tagging takes a lot of extra time. But it’s worth it. Because without the search engines catching you, you’re dependent upon the next thing you have to do, which is a support, only.

You should have your blog listed in every post you do on every forum where you’re known or trying to be known as funny. You should put it into your email signature line, to drive friends and family there. You should add the URL to the yearly newsletters you may send out.

Speaking of URLs, blog versus website -- discuss. Well, there are pros and cons to both. For the unpubbed or not very much pubbed writer, a website could be premature. (Note: Someone other than visiting Prof. Jeanne has to teach on websites, I just know the differences, not the why’s, wherefore’s and how to’s.) While there are many similarities between them, the key MARKETING difference is you use your website to help sell your books. You sell from the website, drive to your publisher’s site, drive to the bookstores selling your books, etc. You also are creating demand for your books by providing teasers, samples, personal info interesting to fans, etc.

Many writers have their blog linked or on their website. This, like website creation, takes some work. How much? Can’t tell you. Blogs are easier to start, I can tell you that.

Happily, while teacher has been incapacitated, most of you have gone off and started already. Well done! Now…keep it up! Why? Because all the tags in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t have copy, new copy, up there on a regular basis.

We talked about it before, but focus on a schedule and try to keep to it. Do you post every Monday? Tuesdays and Thursdays? Friday night and Wednesday morning? Try to find a rhythm and stick with it. Treat it like it’s a small but necessary chore, like paying a bill on time. The sooner you get into the habit, the better your blog will be for it.

And, to reassure you as to why -- you may blog for months and not get any hot nibbles in terms of readers. And then one of your posts may bring you a cornucopia of readers, who will read your other stuff and realize they want to read your stuff all the time. And that way lies the creation of a fan base…which is what we want to create with our blogs.

Last but in no way least -- comments. Comments are key, because they show someone how much readership you have. But if you try to respond to every comment, then you will run out of time as you get a larger readership. So, be both picky and random.

Picky -- the fans (hi Mom!) who’ve stuck with you since Blog Day 1 deserve replies, at least every other time once you get an active blog. The ones who rave about how awesome you are also deserve a Thank You Kindly! For every person who comments, it’s likely you have many who read, enjoyed, but did NOT comment. You want to encourage the talkative ones because they help drag along the silent ones.

Random -- just pick a post and reply to it. Either because the poster was funny, interesting, seems to like your stuff, doesn’t like your stuff, whatever. Try to avoid any form of baiting or fighting. If someone posts something insulting, you can delete or hide their post, it’s YOUR blog. But sometimes a quirky or funny or even dull commenter can be fandom gold, and anyone who took the time to say “funny” could be the person who convinces Oprah you need to be booked onto the show next.

So, write like you mean it, tag like your life depends on it, reply to comments as makes sense for where you are in the great Blogsphere of Life, and always remember…let’s be funny out there!

I certainly tag like crazy but blast Blogspot for their tag character limits! Many a time I've finagled the tags so they fit. And you guys should register with humor-blogs.com. I posted the link on the last page. It'll get you exposed to a bunch of other humor blogs and vise versa. You rate them, they rate you, you get more readers and so on. Unfortunately I can't access it on my work server. Boo. I don't have a schedule to my posting but it's no less than once a week. Schedules don't bind me! I do have a couple more entries that I want to make but I'm spacing them out since I did two yesterday.

Also, I would recommend making the blog your own. I know Amy has a pretty background on her's and I can't remember Sherry's (bad memory, my fault) but while I did like the stock template on Blogspot that I had and the colors, I decided to make some graphics for it in order to pretty it up. I'm not a huge fan of overload on a blog, especially on a writing one because, to me, it detracts from the writing itself. A couple of things won't hurt but the way I see it, the writing should be the focus, not the pretty things surrounding it (backgrounds--I should say obnoxious backgrounds, too many graphics and so on).

It helps too if you're on a social networking site. I spammed all of my MySpace and Facebook friends (about 200 in total) so hopefully I'll get some bites that way.

A link or banner exchange couldn't hurt either. If you read a blog that you like, it couldn't hurt to invite the author to read yours and see if they'd be interested in exchanging banners or links. Basically that means if you link to me on your blog, I'll link to you on mine. A fair exchange of promotion.

I've left mine very basic, but I'm trying to put some sort of photo or illustration on the entries. Don't want to mess with copyrights so I'm drawing my own. Just crude cartoony things, but it's fun.

I'm up for link exchanges. I've put my blog link on my website and have had some good participation from a group of friends from a message board. I'm also keeping to my goal of posting every day. I got ambitious today and already wrote and illustrated tomorrow's post.

-- Joanna

If you use an image that isn't yours, just make note of where you got it (if you know) and you should be ok. The majority of people will be fine as long as you give them credit. I actually put a little blurb on mine that I get images from Google images search and if anything belongs to someone that reads my blog to just say so and I'll post the association. You can do it, just make sure you back yourself up and say they're not yours, you got them from here and so on. Not many people do that since image piracy on the internet is rampant but I would advise to be kind!

Jeanne, I can't send enough kudos to you for doing this class, so an RP will have to do. SherryTex, Donna Duck--I've checked out your blogs and I'm completely impressed. There's a lot of talent in the Humor Forum. Wishing everybody much success with their blogs.

More exposure? Try the blog carnivals or the blogchain thing. I'm doing the November blogchain, the AW FF Carnival and the Halloween Carnival. It keeps you writing and gets you more exposure! Now if I can just remember to rate other people's blogs on humor-blogs, I'll be good to go!

And Sherry, that count is for profile views, not actual blog views. Chances are your blog has been viewed more than that. From what I know, people on Blogspot need to get their own counter in order to track hits for their blog and not just their profile.

I went with Google analytics. Under help, put in "track stats" and they give you several choices.

Or you can just Google hit counters or site counters and you'll come up with a bunch of stuff. Many of them just have copy and paste codes that you can easily place anywhere. Some can even differentiate between page views and unique viewers.

Ok, I think I'm officially in the brains of the professors. I've already done the first two of the assignment. Woohoo! Ahead of the class! Granted it's not an official journal that I have but I carry a spiral bound to work with me and I've been writing quips down as I think of them, mainly because my brain is a sieve and I'll forget if I don't. And I read every night. Goal!

I got a lot of inspiration from stampandshout.com. They're a bumper sticker website with some biting but funny catches. I already did one piece of Volde*Mart. Had to! And for whatever reason, when I scribble down thoughts, they're never on the lines. They're all over the pages. My brain works better that way!

Sherry--ironically enough I wrote a flash fiction piece that was titled Halloween Hangover!

DonnaDuck said:

Ok, I think I'm officially in the brains of the professors. I've already done the first two of the assignment. Woohoo! Ahead of the class! Granted it's not an official journal that I have but I carry a spiral bound to work with me and I've been writing quips down as I think of them, mainly because my brain is a sieve and I'll forget if I don't. And I read every night. Goal!

I got a lot of inspiration from stampandshout.com. They're a bumper sticker website with some biting but funny catches. I already did one piece of Volde*Mart. Had to! And for whatever reason, when I scribble down thoughts, they're never on the lines. They're all over the pages. My brain works better that way!

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Donna is officially in league with nefarious superthingies which enable her to read the professor's minds. I'm afraid. (But we love you anyway ) Don't eat our brains! Don't eat our brains! (Mine are fried right now, fattening and not good for you at ALL.)

Great post, Sherry. I hound my students from the beginning to start a humor journal. It's essential for the times when the imagination runs dry.

-- Joanna

Mmmmmm....brains...what the hell is with me and zombies? I keep writing about them! Oh no...I have that Shaun of the Dead disease! Crap...braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnssssssssssss...

I didn't realize blogging was an art. Talk about a condescending remark! Considering it's your blog, Sherry, you do with it what you will. Not everyone's stories have to be short and sweet. Granted it shouldn't take 18 scrolls to get through it but I have yet to see an issue with the length of any of your work. Personally I find really short blog posts off-putting. What are you supposed to do, stop mid-way into the story? What I do, I post stuff in my blog that I have no desire to have published (or in which other places wouldn't take it, mindless story-telling and so on). If almost as if this person is saying that you're wasting your writing in your blog when it should be just snippets. For me, 1000 words is a snippet. If you want to tease and you have an article published somewhere that you want others to read, post a paragraph and point them to where to find the rest. If you want to tell a short story, I see no reason to not tell the whole thing unless it's ungodly long. In the end, it's your blog and you do what you want with it. If something is working for you, do it. Don't do something else because someone says "you have a lot to learn" on the subject. Mix short and long and whathaveyou. If it works, it works. Sheesh! Elitest bloggers! Who da thunk?

By the way, Sherry, remember that Volkswagen thing I wrote? I just posted the "revised" piece in my blog. Heehee!

SherryTex said:

A few follow up questions for our blog professor extrodinaire from the resident rookie.

I heard from another writer who has a blog that has won awards that I should keep my stories short and incomplete? She said I had a lot to learn about blogging.

Who wants to read that? You want a sandwich, you don't want to be handed bread with mustard and nothing else. Having seen a lot of what I would term chop salad blogs I now question my own instinct --to write the whole story, leave the reader satisfied such that they want to come back for more as opposed to asking, is there more, there has to be more...why isn't there more?

So I come back to the question --trust my own instinct and keep it up or hold back --which isn't really my writing style.

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Always, always, always trust your own instincts. Unless this person is going to do all the writing for you and send you the money, it's her opinion, only. Advice is great. Belittling, not so much.

Won awards for blogging from where? Are these monetary awards? Are they getting her publishing contracts? Is she a professional writer with a weekly column and using her blog as a teaser? These answers, and answers to a lot of other questions I could come up with, alter how much you should or shouldn't listen to her.

I have never gone back to a blog where I didn't get a full story, article, anecdote, etc. I woulnd't go back because I personally hate teasers, or "to be continueds" in something this fluid. I'm sure I'm not alone in that mindset.

It's YOUR writing career. Do what feels right to YOU.

Sorry I've been missing in action lately. I thought I broke Google, but it seems to be behaving nicely enough now.

Sherry, I'm with you. I do whole essays for my blog. The difference, though, is that they're usually shorter ones from ideas I've had that didn't flesh out to standard size pieces. Some ideas are only funny at 400-600 words and bog down if you try to add more. Some I write from scratch, and some are from ideas I started and said all I had to say in a short time. So they're complete, but briefer, versions of the standard 800-1200 word essays I usually write.